The Boiling Point
by ohariel
Summary: A mind on the brink of falling into eternal insanity, and another of complete indifference. When she looses everything, why does he save her? KagSess
1. Part One: Hate

**The Boiling Point** _by Teake  
He thinks he killed her to save her._

Part one: Hate

Dried autumn leaves shatters beneath his boots with a swift, crisp cry that echoes within the night space, and then he stops, unblinkingly watching the remains become stained with blood that drips from his claws.

_'Serves her right,' _he thinks nonchalantly, and continues into the silent shade of the unending foliage.

The sun rises meekly in the distance, and the air suddenly becomes less dry, less depressing, less menacing, and the cheerful morning birds starts to awake and ready their wings for the new day ahead. A little bit like her, they are: becoming happy at the sign of a fair-weathered day, and always, _always_ playing the giver. No one sees into her heart, but he knows how she feels.

He knows of the turmoil inside of her.

The final battle had been fought and won, but none of her shard-hunting companions can be found.

They are _probably_ all dead.

He wasn't sure why she sought him out, or if she had even meant to seek him out in the first place, and he still isn't very sure now. All he knows is that she was no longer who everyone saw her as. She had gone insane.

"Hi," she had first said to him with an empty trace of a smile, and at that time, he had been contemplating seriously whether or not to simply slit her throat then continue on his way, undisturbed.

"Where's Rin?" she then questioned. "That human girl who always follows you around?"

He hadn't given her an answer, so she continued to talk.

"You know," she started, "it's a really nice day today. I like it a lot when the sun is out. The forest grounds aren't too wet to walk in and if you listen carefully, you could hear every little thing."

She closed her eyes, and he felt irritation pool at the bottom of his stomach, his claws twitching.

He started walking again in a brisk pace, and she followed. He can't find a reason as to why he had let her without ending her life then and there. Maybe it was because she had caught a bit of his attention; maybe it was what she had said next.

"I really, really hate them."

Days went by, then weeks. He wasn't sure how long he allowed her to follow him. She was almost always talking, and sometimes, she cried.

"He was never there," she once said, "I'm so tired of being obligated to him. If only I didn't hold Kikyou's feelings of fondness for him. I think I hate the feeling of being in love with him. It makes me sick and tired."

She sighed without emotion and said, "I think it's disgusting."

He rarely replied to her thoughts.

"I hate him so much," she began to laugh, with tears trailing down her cheeks, "I'm pretty glad that he's dead."

On another day, she brought up the whereabouts of Rin again.

"She left you, didn't she?"

His silence answered her, and she stayed tranquil for the day, knowing better than to pry further.

He doesn't know when it was that he got tired of her.

It is an autumn night.

She cried uncontrollably.

"Why did they do this to me? How could they?" she sobbed loudly, "I wanted every one of them to disappear from the world, but now that they have, I'm hating them even more! How can I stop my feelings of hatred for them? How?"

He regarded her with honey-colored eyes as she knelt harshly, grazing her knees and pushing the skin against the dirt so hard it tore apart and bled. She was shutting her eyes with such strength that her tears fought to spill from her lids, her dirty nails clawing at her own face, and strangled screams releasing themselves from her throat. "I hate them! I hate them!"

She was perfectly mad. Days and weeks and months and years of abuse and memories and _love_ suffocating her with rough ropes continuously tightening around every inch of her.

Then he saved her.

He does not know why he saved her. Maybe because he really was too tired of her; maybe because he loves her.

But he decides that it does not matter, and her blood is drying on his hand, and perhaps only the tree knows that he is crying.

---

**Author's Notes:**  
Writing notes always makes me feel funny because I know that I'll be blushing at 'em a couple of years later when I start to re-read my writing.

Honestly, I haven't touched Inuyasha - or writing-stories-in-English for that matter - for one, or maybe two, years! It's just that I've been encountering some problems these days and I suddenly wanted to start writing again. I feel that I can portray my frustration a bit with a fic. I thought and typed this out right in the text document manager of FF so I apologize if you find some parts that aren't very well thought up. And it's short, and maybe a bit rushed. (Plus, English isn't my native tongue.)

I'm not sure when part two will appear, maybe it won't appear at all, who knows. :-P

I'll appreciate reviews. :-)


	2. Part two: Beginning

******The Boiling Point** _by Ariel_

_Saving her from this._

Part two: Beginning

Naraku was killed in their final battle when she was eighteen years old.

The first is Shippou. She watches as the deadly portal cursed upon Miroku's palm swirls out of control, taking an unsuspecting fox kit - _her son_ - into its horrid depths before the monk is able to prevent it. Only seconds later, both kit and monk disappears from her view, leaving behind nothing aside from a gigantic crater in the earth.

She does not register her own scream then a gasping sob for breath, even as her bow falls to the ground follow by her knees, as she cannot bear that her son and friend will never be held in her arms, nor place his hand upon her behind, ever again.

Next is Sango. Devastation engulfs her entire being at seeing her husband-to-be gone. The slayer allows herself to grieve for no longer than half of a second, before the hateful determination for revenge multiplies in her heart. Then she, at the moment occupied with her own battle against the wind sorceress, is at last successful in severing the youkai's head from her shoulders with a particularly heavy swing of her Hiraikotsu.

Then she goes in for the single opponent remaining in the battlefield, the wretched half-breed himself. Flying on the back of her fire-cat, she fights alongside Inuyasha, both cutting down their share of deadly tentacles and getting ever closer to the true body of their foe.

Kagome cannot even see what happens from the distance of her position. All she sees is the slayer tumbling to the ground with her fire-cat in its kitten form, then both lie unmoving.

After Naraku is removed permanently from the face of the earth, Inuyasha and Kagome stare at each other, neither knowing what to say to the other. Their companions, with whom they traveled for three years, whom they lived every day understanding from the inside-out like family, are gone.

They are back to the beginning, with two parts of a complete jewel, one hanyou, and one miko.

As though nothing ever happened in between. Except for the blood and gore staining their clothes so thoroughly she can feel them _seeping_ _into_ her skin.

Now the hanyou, back facing her, picks up the purple-tinted Shikon from its discarded place upon the ground. He turns on his heels, walks with full steps toward her, deposits the tainted half-piece into her hand, and leaps away leaving her alone in the aftermath of _her quest_.

Only the disgustingly familiar sight of white, floating soul-stealers in the distance met her sight ever again.

She lets out a breath. Things have returned to their own. But with the portal to her own rightful home destroyed - an act performed by the evil hanyou the night before this battle in an effective attempt to cause misery - how can she find her place?

Days turn into weeks, then into months as she wanders the unfamiliar era. She did her last deeds by burying the body of Sango and Kirara, then performing a suitable prayer for their souls to peacefully find the next world. She does not know the way back to the village where her well resides beside, but also has no desire to do so, as there is nothing waiting for her there.

She lives off berries and scant meat of what small creatures she hunts with her one set of bow and arrows. She defends herself from weak beings lusting after her complete jewel with the same weapons. She sleeps restlessly night after night in the less-than-adequate safety of trees and caves. Before she chances upon _him_ nearly after a quarter of a year into her aimless life.

_Familiarity_, is the first thought that comes into her mind, then _safety_, despite everything that makes him who he is, both now and in the past.

_He knows me. I know him._ Is her last thought before she wanders behind him.

**Author's Notes:**

I don't know why I continued this, perhaps because I can't sleep even though I'm so tired, and there is so much on my agenda, always. I have always continued to satisfy my fandom for this pairing - it is never about the actual series anymore - by reading. I wanted to come back to read my work, and felt this one was too incomplete.

Warnings ahead, though! Updates will be sporadic! But they will probably come some time. And please review! Everyone loves those! :)


	3. Part three: Weakness

Pre-chapter note: The event that Rin dies and is resurrected a second time does not happen in this fic! Also Lady Mother will most likely _not_ be making her appearance any time.

**The Boiling Point **_by Ariel_

_For whom we walk alone?_

Part Three: Weakness

The evil half-breed Naraku fell, and many fell in the battle to fall him.

He scents her before he sees her, and he sees her before she sees him. He regrets not making the decision to keep his presence unknown to her when he had the chance.

"Hi," she says but he does not even grace her with his acknowledgement, much less a reply. Her question next, however, irritates him and he narrows his eyes, sending her a hateful glare. _It is none of your business,_ he wants to say, but he will not allow her a conversation.

Instead, he ignores her and continues on his way, not quite anticipating her following him, nor her next comment.

"I really, really hate them," she whispers knowing he will hear nonetheless, and he feels a handful of her emotions behind those words. She is still an open book when it comes to her aura and her expressions. "If I can choose, I will rather not have met any one of them. They only brought pain with their friendship and love and then deaths."

Following after him like a toddler, or rather like the way _his ward_ did in the past, the miko treads with careless steps but still manage to keep up with his long strides without falling flat over the protruding greens of the vast land. Unconsciously he notes, that she is not as light-stepped, nor as chatty, nor as attentive to the red, yellow and blue wildflowers blooming along their path as Rin. Though she may have been, before the last battle with Naraku fell her as well.

_Rin_, the wind seems to whisper in his ear, _Rin, who is gone, also_.

He listens as he is reminded of her laugh, her curiosity, and her innocent, caring gaze filled with admiration and utmost respect for his person. Then he hears the pitter-patter of her footsteps as she excitedly runs across fields of wildlife, _towards him, away from him_.

Then the wind - _or is it his memories instead?_ - takes her away from him, but leaves the dark, grey image of the same little human girl who had wide, kind eyes and who mutely offered him food, except now the expressive orbs are glazed over and unfocused as fever and disease rage through her fragile, human body. He relives those days that illness took her life from her and from him, an event that was but a couple months prior.

He remembers his kappa, away for days on end to frantically search for cures and remedies, tracking down healers both demonic and human. But all ended in vain as he still feels her strengthless clutch on his hand, still sees her whitened knuckles and the cold sweat running down her forehead. It is as though she is there once again, suffering, dying, drawing her last breath before her eyes finally close and he smells nothing but the scent of her passing and feels nothing but her fingers slipping away from his.

Jaken took her death the worst, it would seem, as his loyal servant had excused himself from his lord's side on account of failing to protect his charge and thus failing his duty. Having lost the qualification to remain beside his lord, he returned to his lonely occupancy of a swampy lake in the West, surrounded by nothing beside silence where he grievously does nothing day after day.

So Sesshoumaru traveled alone, an arrangement that has always been the most natural, most fitting for one such as he.

That is, until he _allowed_ the priestess to chance upon him. Although he had not an idea that she would be following after him like she is doing now.

Now as he contemplates her words, he thinks to himself, 'foolish humans, allowing themselves to be ruled by their emotions. This Sesshoumaru shall never stoop to disgusting emotions such as mourning.'

Mourning is when one is at his weakest, he believes, and Sesshoumaru will _never_ allow himself to be weak.

**Author's Notes:**

I think I may have some kind of idea where this is going now. My sleep has been bad and that is probably what has me on a roll! But I just wanna sleep~~

Please review!


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